In-silico repurposing of antiviral compounds against Marburg virus: a computational drug discovery approach.

Abstract

The Marburg virus (MARV), a member of the family Filoviridae, is a highly pathogenic virus causing severe hemorrhagic fever with extremely high mortality in humans and non-human primates. The MARV exhibits clinical and epidemiological features almost identical to those of the Ebola virus, no licensed vaccines or antiviral treatments have been developed yet for MARV. However, only a few treatments that remain uncertain of the disease are available to help bring a case for a new therapeutic approach. Considering the non-availability of any standard drug we have planned to identify potential inhibitors of VP24 (PDB ID: 4OR8) through a computational drug repurposing process. The workflow includes: identifying a druggable pocket on VP24, screening of FDA-approved antivirals via molecular docking, assessing the stability using molecular dynamics simulations, and estimating binding affinity through MM-PBSA calculations. After going through the analysis, the compound Bictegravir manifests as a hit compound which will undergo in vitro and in vivo validation to confirm its efficacy against MARV.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40203-025-00323-7.